AgustaWestland deal: Congress accuses BJP president of misleading the country (15:20)

New Delhi, April 30  The Congress on Saturday demanded an apology from Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Amit Shah for spreading lies and misleading the nation on the AgustaWestland chopper deal.

"Amit Shah and BJP leaders have become masters in pursuing politics of deceit and deliberate lies. BJP government needs to introspect whether mud-slinging and muckraking can ever replace the truth,” Congress spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala said. 

"Can ‘smear campaign’ and ‘hatchet jobs’ of ‘BJP’s dirty tricks department’ defend the ‘Operation Cover-up’ of BJP government in helping AugustaWestland?"

Singh attacked the BJP president saying: "Amit Shah has called AgustaWestland and its parent company Finmeccanica a ‘bogus company’. Will Amit Shah ask Modi government as to why it has been protecting the same bogus company for last two years as CBI/ED investigation has reached no conclusion?"

"Will Amit Shah and BJP answer to the people as to why the same ‘fraud company’ was permitted to be part of Prime Minister’s ‘Make-in-India’ programme and participate in ‘Aero India Exhibition’?" he asked. 

He also sought to know from Shah to explain "why the same ‘fraud company’ was being given permission by Foreign Investment Promotion Board of Modi government as recently as on December 8, 2015?" 

"Will he also answer as to why the same ‘fraud company’ was given permission to participate in defence contract as a ‘sub-contractor’ as also ‘supplier to a contracting party’ with government of India by order dated August 22, 2014 of Ministry of Defence?" the Congress spokesperson added.